Former High School Teacher Sentenced

ENFIELD — A former Enrico Fermi High School teacher was sentenced Thursday to two years suspended and two years of probation for kissing a student while employed at the school last year.

Before being sentenced, Tyler Wells pleaded no contest to two counts of fourth-degree sexual assault.

Under conditions of probation, Wells must register as a sex offender for 10 years and surrender his teaching certificate. He must also seek psychiatric evaluation and treatment and submit to random searches, and he is barred from contacting the victim and her family.

"I think it very sad that such a bright man as yourself got into this situation," said Judge Howard Scheinblum.

The charges that Wells pleaded to stem from two instances in March 2012 when Wells kissed and touched a 17-year-old student in his classroom, said state prosecutor Debra Collins.

According to an arrest warrant for Wells, police began investigating in June 2012 after two students told a teacher at the high school about the physical relationship between Wells and the girl.

Police sought an arrest warrant for Wells after speaking with the victim and reading text messages sent to her phone. She told police that she and her history teacher kissed in his classroom about 30 times between March and May of 2012.

The student told police she had been sitting next to him during class since December of 2011 when he moved her desk next to his, the warrant states.

In March they exchanged phone numbers and began sending each other text messages, the warrant says. Investigators looked through the girl's phone and found several messages from Wells, with most asking how the other is doing, the warrant states. In other messages, Wells compliments the girl's body and says he loves a pair of pants she wore to class, the warrant states.

The girl told police that she and Wells "made out" the first time before homeroom in March, that she would go to his classroom every day and that they usually "made out" during fourth period. In addition to making out, she said, Wells also touched her breast, her buttocks and her inner thigh, the warrant states.

She told police that she and Wells stopped text messaging each other in April of 2012 and that they kissed for the last time that May, the warrant states.